Picture Jesus in your mind. What do you see? Some semi-Anglican white man with flowing hair and a full beard, right?
Something like this?
Well, my friend, you are completely normal. For thousands of years, the (perhaps) most influential man in European history has been portrayed exactly how the Europeans want their religious savior to be depicted as similar themselves as possible in order to be able to relate to the image.
But isn't this detrimental to the worship of the man himself? One would think. However, apparently the collective Christian churches don't mind that the object of their worship was drastically different than how they perceive him.
He actually looked something
like this.
Yes, that's Jesus. That's how he most likely looked during his time on Earth according to a group of very smart people.
Do you think Christians would hold Jesus in the same regard if they normally pictured him how he really looked?
And from a different angle: does man create his god?
